


The Knots Still In Her Hair

by Cheloya



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:57:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Old, imported. Tifa is good at dealing with other people's hurts, not her own.





	The Knots Still In Her Hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leviathanmirror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanmirror/gifts).



It’s something she’d always prided herself on – no, not prided, exactly, but known of and appreciated just a little in herself – the ability to get up and churn onward and not just collapse when things hit her so hard she could choke. She’d never been one to let her knees buckle; she’d always preferred to have other people do the buckling, because that, at least, she knew how to deal with. Tifa was the one true master of the Comfort Food, the one true master of the Shoulder To Cry On, forget what she’d learned from Zangan. Tifa could catch people and hold them tight until they were ready to pushmselves upright again.

The catch with that, of course, was that she’d never much had time to comfort herself. She’d never much had time, because chances were that when she was hurt other people were more hurt, and that meant she had something to do, something to distract her from her own pain, just a little bit. But here in the Forgotten Capital, watching Barret pace and swear and rub at his damn foo’ eyes, he weren’t cryin’, shut your damn face all up, that _damn smoke_ was just irritatin’ his eyes, watching Cid, or rather, watching the dense cloud that had surrounded Cid and listening to the wet, pervasive sniffles of Yuffie-in-the-Corner, curled around Red like he was nothing but the world’s biggest soft toy, and knowing that Cloud was still down there, still down there just staring from the edge of that _goddamn lake_ and there was nothing she could do, nothing, nothing, nothing—

Because she was just, she was just so _angry_ , not even at Sephiroth, not even at what had happened, but, illogically, at Aeris, at the woman who was dead, the woman who had gone down into the dead city and prayed for them, prayed for _what_ , to be _stabbed_ , to be just another part of the great Cetra shishkebab in the sky? She’d cried already, she’d cried for hours – arms locked around Yuffie, face buried in the rough fabric of Barret’s filthy, ugly old vest, and if she started again now, she’d never stop, because she didn’t _understand_.

“Why’d she have to go off on her own?” she whispered to her rations, trying to keep things normal, trying to keep Aeris’ smiling, bloodless face from her mind as she put together what was – had been – the Cetra’s favourite campfire dish, the one she always said Tifa made even better than her mother, the one she _hadn’t made instead of tuna_ the night that Aeris left. Tifa’s hands fisted around dented cans and she slammed them into the stone slab that had served them as table for three days while they stayed here. “Why couldn’t she just _wait_ for us, we could’ve—could’ve _helped_ her—”

No one wanted to eat anything. She doled it out onto their personal plates and stood over them until she was satisfied they’d all eaten enough, all except Cloud, who didn’t even seem to notice her when she came to give it to him in the first place, though she stood behind him staring at the still water for a long while, arms crossed underneath her breasts and trying to work the lump enough out of her throat that she could tell him to just, just _eat_ , for godsakes, did he think that watching the water was going to bring her _back_ , but she couldn’t really say that when she was watching the water herself – watching it and flexing her fingers and knowing just how light a sleeper she was, knowing that Aeris hadn’t stroked her hair one last time or kissed her forehead or even bopped her on the nose—

Eventually, when Cloud seemed to have fallen asleep, she took his plate and waded out into the middle of the lake, as far as she could go before the rock shelf that kept most of it shallow just vanished into the dark pit of water that had swallowed Aeris for good. She dumped it off the plate and into the water, cold oil globules chasing each other in the eddies that the sinking potato and ham and assorted spring vegetables in what barely passed for a pie crust created as they followed the Cetra down.

“There,” she said, dunking the plate under the water a few times for good measure. “There. Better than the tuna. Don’t get it stuck in your hair.” She was crying when she waded out again, to grab Cloud’s arm and haul him to his feet while he blinked in sleepy bewilderment, and then pain, but it was okay to cry, picturing that gentle smile with flakes of pie crust caught in the corners, missing already the mischievous curve of lips that came just before an offer to wash the dishes (dry the dishes, turn the dishes o-ver) at the nearest private stream. It was okay to cry, so long as the next one to buckle wasn’t any of them, but Sephiroth. It was okay to cry. It was okay.


End file.
